Bigbit

I had the strangest experience today on UA888 PEK/SFO. I don't know whether I should be angry, grateful, or amused.

I boarded the plane about a half hour before take-off and was doing my pre-flight gear preparation, which includes shoe removal on long flights. As soon as my stocking-ed foot hit the floor, the bottom of the sock saturated with water.

I was in 25F (C class) in the row of three right behind the aft C galley. The whole floor area behind the galley was sopping wet. I grabbed the nearest FA and pointed out the problem. She seemed equally concerned and immediately fetched someone from the flight deck. One of the pilots came back, looked at the water, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "put something down on the floor to absorb the water", and walked away. About 4 FA's now scout the back of the plane, which was about half full in E, and bring back a stack of about 12 blankets, which they use to line the floor under our feet.

To my surprise no other maintenance action was taken, and the flight takes off normally.

The FA's are really great about the situation, and keep asking if we're OK, and even offered to give us each whole rows in E if we'd like (C and F were both full). Things don't seem too bad, so we stuck it out. I fell asleep and upon awaking found a customer complaint form (one of those 5K mileage credit jobs) on my armrest, which I fill out and hand back to an FA.

About 2.5 hours out from SFO, things suddenly get worse. Water is dripping out of the ceiling over 24 - 26 HJ area. Apparently it is coming out of the ceiling even worse in the far back of E - the GHJ back in the 50's. The floor in front of my feet looked like a small river. Water was actually flowing over the nap of the carpet, and then disappearing below.

Now there is a whole gang of purser's, FA's, and one pilot, all scurrying about. I hear the pilot say say to one of the FA's that "a water leak problem had been reported on the inbound to PEK, but the PEK maintenance crew had found nothing wrong". I couldn't believe that they had been aware of this problem since the previous flight! They decide that the water is most likely coming from the upstairs galley (I hope from a water line!), but there's nothing that they can do to stop it.

I actually had it better than the folks in the right section where it was leaking from the ceiling. The water was getting into the overheads, so these poor people wer holding their carry-ons on their laps with blankets on or above themselves to absorb the dripping water. On approach, the FA's came by and told these folks that it was OK this one time for them to keep their carry-ons on their laps during landing.

In summary, I thought that the FA's did a great job dealing with a bad situation, but I'm a bit startled that the flight deck knew about a condition that had existed on an incoming flight and that hadn't been repaired, and was then alerted by a customer and FA's before take off that the condition still existed, and still decided to fly any way. Not knowing much about aircraft construction, I am not sure if our safety was jeopardized, but I felt very uncomfortable watching that water pour down and going who-knows-where in the aircraft.

What action, if any, would FT members suggest I take as follow-up with UA?

United737522

They let them have carryons on their laps?!? Major NO-NO. If there is an accident, those carry-ons can become deadly.

Water leaks should not be dangerous, although very incovenient.

Odd, I would have figured the pipes to be below.

yogi

At least it was clear, not blue......

You already submitted a customer complaint form. If you used an SWU I would write and ask for it back.

P.S. Did you get the tail number?

iwebslinger

No pictures? Man this would be a great time to get a camera out and start taking pictures or filming.

Mike Jacoubowsky

As it appears the FAs were as frustrated as the pax, it might have been fun (assuming there's no law against it) to get a photo taken of someone with an umbrella under the leak.

But seriously, that sounds like a major, not minor, inconvenience. I'm curious as to how they might provide compensation. The folk in Y, heck, they're happy not to be strapped to the wing (my usual spot). But for people who pay extra for a more-pleasant experience...

There's also the issue not just that this was a problem reported previously, but that it showed up again after a maintenance crew found no problem...before the flight took off... and even a pilot wasn't bothered by it.

Of course, in the end you have to ask yourself which would have been worse. Flying in the plane-equivalent of a movie theater where someone had spilled a huge drink a couple rows behind you, or likely being delayed a full day (and possibly bumped into a situation where you'd lose your C seats) and put on either another plane or having had that one repaired.

TonySCV

I just saw the topic of this thread and without reading the messages I guessed that you were probably sitting in row 25 or near it.

There was a FT'er who posted a long time ago about a similar problem - water dripping from a 744 on to their seats in row 25. Sorry to hear that it has returned.

rjque

Wasn't there some concern about 10-15 years back that, in older Boeing models, getting wiring bundles wet could cause a fire? I seem to remember a Dateline or 60 Minutes about this. Could have been an overblown sensationalistic report but this would definitely be on my mind as I watched the stream of water disappear below.

Loren Pechtel

They probably didn't want to pay damage claims.

rjque

I'll bet the FAA fine for this is much larger than any of the damage claims UA would have had to deal with.

camachinist

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?...03IA097&akey=1

Sound familiar?


Pat

mattmacinnis

Whoa. That's an interesting NTSB posting. In the 2003 event, breakers were not re-engaged in HKG. Could that have happened again this morning in PEK? I guess it's blind luck that there were no flight control anomalies this time (assuming it was the same issue).

BearX220

Holy moly. Great link, camachinist. Seems like the biggest sin here was for the pilot to just shrug and tell the FA to go get a bunch of blankets. That seems like really cavalier judgment.

Bigbit

1) No, I did not get the tail number
2) No camera with me. Sorry!
3) I would have preferred a day's delay to the thought of flying in a potentially dangerous aircarft, particularly after reading camachinist's post/link
4) I was surprised by the "bags on the laps OK" directive, too. The overheads in the center and left sections were fine, and I think the affected passengers could have found stowage room there. The pilot and FA's were worried about the water leak points changing as the plane banked during approach, although that never did happen

us2

Interesting that there was a way to shut off the flow in the NTSB incident but that that approach seems not to have been tried here. Also, it's hard to believe that the problem was blown off by both the crew and maintenance after a serious incident that resulted in the FAA issuing an AD. I hate to form a judgment about the crew here without knowing all the facts, but this one seems like someone dropped the ball somewhere along the line.

Constant Motion

Same thing happened last time we flew into LAX from Sydney. The whole middle section downstairs business class started to get wet from overhead leaks, people were moved, the carpet was soaked, blankets were laid on floor. Perhaps fifteen minutes out of arrival.